Did you know that a child with autism is much more likely to be diagnosed with a sleeping disorder? For a long time I didn’t consider myself an expert on sleep because it was something that my household really struggled with for years—which is common in most families with a child with autism. Night after night my family played a bad game of “musical beds”. It wasn’t until a fellow behavior analyst gave me some amazing advice that I really started to get a handle on autism and sleep, and how to combat the problem behaviors and reclaim my sleep.
I cannot stress enough the importance of maintaining a solid, consistent bedtime schedule. If your child or client has already developed bad habits in this area, this will be much harder to combat. But if you stick to your routine, eventually the child will learn to look forward to bedtime.
Within this podcast episode and video blog, I discuss simple changes that can make all the difference.
You’ll Learn
Poor sleep is very common in children with autism. With my own son, Lucas, I struggled with getting him to sleep in his own bed through the night for ten years. Using ABA techniques though, I was finally able to establish step by step procedures that resulted in him sleeping through the night consistently in his own bed. That’s why I want to talk all about autism and sleep, and what you can do to stop playing musical beds and get more quality sleep for both your child and yourself.
When I was writing my book in 2006, Lucas was nine years old and I remember my husband saying “whatever you do don’t put anything about sleep in your book because you have no idea what you’re doing when it comes to autism and sleep.”
By this point, I had been a BCBA for three years and had already worked with hundreds of children through a statewide grant in Pennsylvania. But my husband was right. I was very bad at shaping up good sleep habits with my son, Lucas.
Every night, despite giving Lucas melatonin and starting him out in his own bed, he would wake up. He sometimes would be up for hours, but oftentimes he would run in our room and climb into our king size bed and fall back to sleep. Sometimes I would end up in his bed and sometimes he would end up in our bed. But for the first 10 years of Lucas’ life, we dealt with disrupted sleep patterns every single night.
I took my husband’s advice and didn’t put any autism and sleep information in my book. It wasn’t until a few years later when I went to give a full day presentation in Ohio that I met a BCBA who specialized in sleep. She helped me with a few key pieces of information regarding sleep.
One of the first pieces of advice was for me to lock our bedroom door at night. This prevented Lucas from just barging in and jumping in our bed. I explained to Lucas that the door would be locked and he would need to knock. I also explained that he would get a special reinforcement for sleeping in his own bed and for waking up alone in his bed in the morning.
For Lucas, this reinforcement was a special kind of cookie that he wasn’t going to get for anything else. You might be thinking “my child won’t understand all that,” but I didn’t think Lucas would either at that point.
So I picked a date, locked my bedroom door, and when Lucas would knock I would return him to his bed and tell him that he needed to sleep there for the special cookie in the morning. This offer of reinforcement was key to preventing problem behaviors that may have occurred.
The first night he woke up three times. Each time I returned him to his bed and reminded him that he needed to stay in his own bed alone for the special cookie in the morning. The second night Lucas woke up twice and the third night just one time.
The fourth night – after 10 years of struggling with sleep – Lucas slept in his own bed through the night.
I went on to help many children with autism sleep through the night in their own beds. A lot of times it takes a little bit more time than just three nights and several more interventions and database decisions. And children could have other sleep problems like sleep apnea. Sleep is just like any other behavior, it can be shaped and it can be changed and it can be improved through the science of applied behavior analysis.
Sleep is a necessity no matter how you spin it. If your child doesn’t sleep through the night, then neither will you. Knowing what I know now, I wish I would have fought to regain my sleep much sooner. I implore you to not make that same mistake and allow me to help you create a bedtime routine. It will lead you to live your happiest, most well-rested, life. To learn more about resolving sleep issues in children with autism, make sure to claim a copy of my free eBook “Stop Playing Musical Beds”.
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